3 Reasons Why NASA's New Moon Mission Matters

At 11:27 pm tonight, NASA will launch its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) science mission to the moon. Currently tucked in the tip of a Minotaur V rocket at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the unmanned system will reach the moon within a month, enter an elliptical lunar orbit, and then spend 100 days studying the moon's atmosphere and environment before crashing into the lunar surface.

Many people "thought we abandoned the moon," says S. Pete Worden, director of the NASA Ames Research Center. "Nothing is further from the truth. There will be more lunar robotics missions in coming decades. Progress is marching on."

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Understanding the Moon's Atmosphere

LADEE is outfitted with two science instruments to study the lunar atmosphere: an ultraviolet and visible light spectrometer and a neural mass spectrometer. The spectrometers will be used to determine the atmosphere's composition and to examine variations of it over time and locations.

"Yes, the moon does have an atmosphere," says Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist at Ames. "It's just much more tenuous than ours." The moon's atmosphere, estimated to be 1/100,000 the density of Earth's, is known as a surface-boundary exosphere and is the most common type of atmosphere in the solar system. According to Sarah Noble, LADEE program scientist at NASA, once scientists better understand how the moon's atmosphere behaves, they could understand characteristics of additional, harder-to-study celestial bodies as well.

"Mercury, a lot of the moons of other planets, even some large asteroids are big enough to have a surface-boundary exosphere," Noble says. And with NASA currently planning a manned trip to an asteroid, this is more than just an academic curiosity.

In surface-boundary exospheres, the molecules are so far apart they don't collide with one another. Instead, scientists suspect that they collide with dust kicked up by countless asteroid impacts that hangs there in the moon's atmosphere. LADEE will scoop moon dust into a particle collector, which will analyze its makeup based on the way it bursts into plasma. This device may solve a mystery of the Apollo era: Why have various astronauts witnessed a glow on the lunar horizon before sunrise? The culprit could be electrically charged and lofted moon dust—if LADEE discovers that there are indeed enough dust particles of sufficient size to rub together to create the effect.

Studying the moon can help unravel other deep scientific questions, such as how life started on Earth. Elphic says the moon's craters can be considered freezers that have stored ancient cosmic material for billions of years. The space impacts that brought that material to the moon may have also brought it to Earth. Studying this "prebiotic" stuff, which scientists hope is preserved in the lunar polar craters, could help to explain the formation of life on Earth.

NASA EDGE

This Could Be Our Last Chance

Moon landings and probes have the potential to seriously disrupt the thin lunar atmosphere. Luckily for LADEE's scientists, the last manned mission to the moon was in 1972, leaving the lunar atmosphere relatively undisturbed for decades. But that won't be the case for much longer. Nearly a dozen planned missions—including manned expeditions from China and private space companies—are headed that way within the next two years. The expected wave of landers could shake up dust and ruin the chance to understand the dynamics of the exosphere.

"Now is a really good time to go and take a look at it while it's still in its pristine, natural state," Noble says.

Pioneering Laser Communications

NASA ground controllers communicate with spacecraft via radio frequency (RF). But there is a better way to correspond: lasers. Scientists equipped LADEE with an experimental two-way laser communications system that will be tested before the science mission begins. This is a first for the agency, says Don Cornwell, mission manager for the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"The goal of the LLCD experiment is to validate and build confidence in this technology so that future missions will consider using it," Cornwell says. "LLCD is designed to send six times more data from the moon using a smaller transmitter with 25 percent less power as compared with the equivalent state-of-the-art RF."

The demonstration could prove that deep-space lasers, which are more secure and less susceptible to interference than RF, could transmit huge amounts of data across vastly increased bandwidth, according to Cornwell. Deep-space probes could one day use lasers to send sensor data, hi-res photos, and HD 3D videos back to Earth. Another two-to-five-year demonstration of the technology has already been funded and is planned for launch in 2017.

NASA Wallops / Terry Zaperach

Want to watch the launch from home? If you live on the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine, you may be able to see the rocket from your yard. This map shows the times when you can expect to catch a glimpse of the Minotaur V above the horizon. Not on the East Coast? You can watch the launch live online here.

In the words of S. Pete Worden: "Godspeed, LADEE."

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